What can we do to change the minds of decision makers and people in general to actually do something about preparing for the forthcoming economic/energy crises (the ones after this one!)?
Nobody wants to see these weapons used, but Britain needs the ultimate deterrant if anybody threatoned to attack us using these weapons. We are entering a dangerious era and I think we would be stupid to scrap them now.
Beria3 wrote:Nobody wants to see these weapons used, but Britain needs the ultimate deterrant if anybody threatoned to attack us using these weapons. We are entering a dangerious era and I think we would be stupid to scrap them now.
I'm really not sure this is true. Britain doesn't need to have international enemies on the scale it currently has. Intervening in various parts of the world where we don't belong makes us more enemies, not fewer. If we want to minimise the threat from Iran then I suggest a better way forward is to make it clear that we DON'T support the Israeli-US axis of evil.
Adam1 wrote:Nuclear weapons have always been militarily pointless and morally wrong.
Do you believe Japan would have surrendered without an invasion if the US had not dropped an atom bomb on them?
I don't.
Of course Japan would have surrendered without the two atomic bombs, just not quite so quickly and perhaps to the Russians rather than the Americans. Don't re-write history to defend our weapons of mass destruction.
Adam1 wrote:Nuclear weapons have always been militarily pointless and morally wrong.
Do you believe Japan would have surrendered without an invasion if the US had not dropped an atom bomb on them?
I don't.
Of course Japan would have surrendered without the two atomic bombs, just not quite so quickly and perhaps to the Russians rather than the Americans. Don't re-write history to defend our weapons of mass destruction.
I'm not rewriting history. It is a historical fact that the Japanese fought to the death for every square metre of the pacific islands and there is little doubt they would have defended their homeland with the same suicidal vigour. Far more people would have died before a Japanese surrender if an invasion had been necessary.
Yes...and why should more Americans have died? How would that be justified, given that the Japanese entered the war with an unprovoked attack on the US and that Japanese culture dictates suicidal fighting to the death rather than the disgrace of surrender? And this is coming from somebody who has a history of vitriolic anti-americanism.
Japan has never even officially apologised for the numerous atrocities it perpretrated during WWII. At least the Germans feel guilty about it. I've never been able to understand the Japanese mentality. They are aliens as far as I am concerned...I find them culturally repulsive.
I agree also with Vortex's point about testing the technology. It was also meant to send a message to the Russians. The two 1945 A bombs achieved exactly that. Later the net lives saved argument was used to justify their use.
Vortex wrote:The Japanese situation could be viewed as a body-count calculation.
More would have died in total had the bombs not been used.
Yup. Everybody forgets what the Japanese were up to in China at the time. Though I'm anti-nuke now, I reckon a lot of Chinese owe their lives to those 2 bombs.